While it looked like the white iPhone 4 was simply delayed again, signs now indicate that it has been scrapped all together.
The white model isn’t shown on Apple’s online store, but it does still appear on the iPhone 4 Gallery page.
While I would think Apple would just give up on this, removing it from the store might just damage control at this point.
I guess we’ll see…
So this leads me to wondering something: how does the application’s data get backed up? Right now within the iOS App Store, your data is backed up when you sync your iOS device and this information is then backed up again when you backup your computer (you do backup your computer, right?). But if your application data is just stored locally and you do have to do a re-install of your computer, even though you are able to download the software itself again, your data may not be easily placed in the correct location, even with backups.
[…]
Syncing is going to be key to apps within the Mac App Store. In order to facilitate the ability for a user to download their data upon a complete re-install, it is going to be necessary to include sync within the applications. This would allow a user to quickly upgrade their Mac by re-downloading all of their applications again from the Mac App Store and then launching the program. Upon launch, the initial download would request credentials for accessing their account and then the automatic download would occur, thereby allowing the user to quickly get back to their last synchronized state.
Such a system would be killer when upgrading to a new computer, but what about syncing data between Macs? Syncing data between my iMac and MacBook Pro is more tricky for some things than syncing my iMac and my iPad. The App Store could solve this pretty easily, I think.
The Columbus Dispatch, on Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich:
It was one of 16 appearances that Kasich has made on Fox television or radio programs since he formally entered the governor’s race on June 1, 2009, according to a count by the Strickland campaign.
Going back to March 2008, when Kasich said he was seriously considering entering the race, there were 42 other appearances, including several times that Kasich was guest host for The O’Reilly Factor.
Critics say Kasich, an on-air personality for Fox from 2002 to 2008, has received overt help from his former employer, both in extraordinary exposure to largely conservative audiences and in potential donations to his campaign.
“They are, in my judgment, primarily a propaganda network that is committed to getting Republicans elected,” [Democratic Gov. Ted] Strickland said.
So, why does anyone still think Fox is a ‘fair and balanced’ organization?
Five years is what, like 900 Internet-years. Their ingenious plan? Adding social media to the company’s webmail product.[1. That’s the last place I want social media.]
No wonder these guys are losing to Google.
All you need to know about this can be summed up this way.
James Galbraith’s benchmarks of the new MacBook Air models are impressive. The morale of the story? Hard drive are really, really slow. Even with low-end processors, these machines are giving the Pro line a run for its money.
I think iPhoto ‘11 is a great piece of software for most people, just not for people who are really into working with their photos.
Excuse me, I have some work to do in Aperture 3 this morning.
On last week’s DadCast, I was asked how my Motorola Droid was treating me.
I gave an answer the guys probably weren’t expecting.
I was an Apple employee in 2007 when the iPhone launched. As such, I was an early user. I remember it being uncomfortable to pull it out in public for months, as it always drew a crowd.
Fast forward two years. At the end of 2009, I was carrying an iPhone 3GS (in white, naturally), and was growing tired of the iPhone experience.
So I switched to the Motorola Droid in January of this year. And after a brief stint with a Palm Pre, went back to the Droid.
The Droid is a great phone. As the last phone that offered a truly vanilla Android experience, it runs like a dream. Not to mention the hardware is awesome. Battery life is great, Android is stable and the entire thing just feels good.
I loved it, right up until the moment I sold it.
So, why did I sell a device I really liked?
Well, in a word — iPad.
The iPad has become my secondary device. Before the tablet, I had a computer and I had a phone. Clear, distinct products for clear and distinct things.
The iPad obviously lives in the gray area between notebooks and smartphones. And for me, it marginalized the smartphone.[1. I think the same thing would have happened if I was using the iPhone. This isn’t a commentary on Android.]
In a former life as the Service Manager of a busy Apple-Authorized Service Provider, I lived on my phone, working out of my car most days. 3G was literally my lifeline back to the office and to my customers. Now, however, I really don’t need 3G because I’m not really out and about that much. Wi-Fi is anywhere I am these days, and my Wi-Fi iPad serves my needs much better[2. To read about how I use my iPad, check out my interview over at The Brooks Review.]
In short, most of the time, I was using my expensive, fancy smartphone for non-smartphone things.
So I bought a Motorola RAZR V3m. In silver, naturally.
The V3m was Motorola’s version of their legendary device for Verizon. Sadly, Big Red stripped many of the phone’s features from the firmware. Happily, it’s pretty easy to re-flash the phone’s firmware to gain these features back using a Motorola utility in Windows.
The phone itself is tiny. Battery life is great. The ringer, earpiece and speaker are all loud and crystal-clear, in true Motorola fashion. There’s a reason this phone ruled the roost for so long.
Thanks to the magical technology that is Bluetooth, the V3m syncs with Address Book on Snow Leopard (via iSync) with no problems. Calendar data, however doesn’t sync. Which while a bummer, isn’t a deal-breaker, since my iPad is pretty much always with me.
Motorola’s custom predictive text system — named iTap — is pretty great. It’s not super smart, but it makes texting on the RAZR bearable. I can even send and receive MMS messages. I have Twitter setup to send DMs right to my phone as well.
The camera is a joke, however. And people give me funny looks if I pull it out of my pocket during meetings.
Here’s what I’m thinking: one of the most popular apps since the inception of the iPhone App Store has been Pandora. Pandora obviously works through the web browser, but plenty of people would be into a small app that sits somewhere on your desktop running in the background. How do I know? Because Pandora actually already makes such an app — but it runs on AIR and you need a Pandora One premium account to use it. What if Pandora made a free ad-supported Pandora Mac app? Or a paid version (maybe $5 or $10) that gives you premium features? A lot of people would want such an app.
[…]
But a real opportunity may exist in small apps that don’t just fully mimic popular web apps, but instead extend upon them. Imagine a Facebook app, for example, that offered a great photo upload and viewing experience? Again, this is sort of the idea Apple seemed to originally have with their Desktop Widgets, but those never really took off. One reason, undoubtedly, is that distribution was lacking, and developers had no way to make money from them. The Mac App Store solves both of those issues.
Mobile apps do a lot of things that would be done in the browser on the desktop. The question is if that trend will make it to the desktop in the trojan horse of the Mac App Store. I think Siegler may be on to something — a whole class of little apps that make life a little bit easier.
Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug, on carrier-bundled apps on Windows Phone 7 devices:
While Microsoft won’t enforce a clean install on every Windows Phone, it does ensure that anything your carrier/OEM installs on top of the OS can be uninstalled. My Samsung Focus for example came with a bunch of AT&T apps. Not only can they be unpinned from the start menu, they can also be completely uninstalled. Carriers get the option to differentiate, but users get the option to say no, it’s a win-win situation. If you do a factory reset of your phone however, it will restore the phone to its original state – which will include reinstalling carrier/OEM installed apps.
Coupled with Microsoft’s oversight concerning their partners’ hardware, it really sounds like Microsoft has spent some serious time looking at Android’s problems and learning from them.
The Droid X and almost every other Android phone[1. Even the T-Mobile G2, which is the latest “Google Phone” comes with pre-loaded apps and protection against rooting.] come with tons of crapware that can’t be uninstalled, and every week there seems to be a new UI on top of Android. The original Motorola Droid was the last true “vanilla” Android device with no preloaded apps and no custom UI, and it’s been discontinued for months.
If Microsoft can keep carriers from loading up handsets with crappy apps (or at the very least, keep this uninstall feature around) and keep hardware manufacturers from producing sub-par gear and customized UIs, Windows Phone 7 may indeed fulfill Android’s original dream — a smartphone OS that runs across multiple carriers on multiple form factors while delivering the same experience to everyone.
Which is a hell of a feat to pull off. Google doesn’t seem like they are able to do this. But Microsoft… well, they might just get this right.
I picked up a Twelve South Compass iPad stand today at the Apple Store. If you use your iPad without a case, you need this little guy in your life. It’s handsome, well-made and a lot heavier than it looks. Which makes it quite sturdy, even when typing on the iPad. The rubber feet and insets grip the iPad to keep it from moving, and keep the stand from scratching it. You won’t regret having it around.
Nine years ago, Steve Jobs announced the new era of computing was about to begin. Pete Mortensen:
It was January 9, 2001. It was the silver anniversary of Apple, and the newspapers were full of stories about the demise of the personal computer. Lots of digital devices had emerged that were tailored to single tasks that they did really well, from digital cameras to DVD players to DVRs to CD players to camcorders to PDAs. Many thought that we would replace our multi-use but often inefficient computers with a bunch of highly effective single-taskers. But not Jobs. As he made clear, the strength of a computer was its ability to control and integrate all these many digital devices. A Mac, in short, could serve as the Digital Hub that unites those disparate points in your digital life.
iLife — first launched as a product family in 2003[1. Check out the history of iLife.] — served as Apple’s solution to the Digital Hub problem.
When it first came out, iLife was magical. There had never been such a great way to organize photos, edit home videos or create DVDs. Over the years, music editing and simple website creation were added with GarageBand and iWeb.
Since its launch, iLife has been one of Apple’s main tools to lure PC users to the Mac. And for good reason. iLife is unique in the computer industry. There’s nothing like iLife on the PC — in any price range. The fact that Apple bundles it for free with new Macs is mind-blowing.
As important as iLife is to Apple, there is a segment of Mac users seem to have grown weary of it. As the iLife demos were happening at this week’s event, there were tons of comments on Twitter (and in the Macgasm chat room) wishing the event would just move on, past iLife.
I talked on the DadCast this week about about the Mac App Store possibly creating two classes of Mac users — new users, pulled to the Mac via iOS devices and older users, who have been on the Mac for years who use things like Terminal and Console.
I think iLife is becoming another line in the sand between classes of Mac users. My lovely, hot wife (whom I love very much) isn’t a power use by any stretch of the word. She uses iPhoto all the time. I however, use Aperture. In fact, I use exactly zero iLife programs on a regular basis.
I think this is a pretty common. I think a lot of moderate to power users are frustrated with iLife’s simplicity.
With pro apps like Aperture, Logic and Final Cut Express cheaper and more powerful than ever, iLife has some real competition on the Mac.[2. If you buy an Apple pro app instead of iLife, Apple still wins, of course.]
There’s nothing wrong with more serious users wanting more serious programs. The problem is that Apple’s pro apps don’t get the time or attention that iLife does. iPhoto’s fancy new card printing got several minutes of air time during Apple’s event. When was the last time Aperture got that much love?
Apple needs to find a balance. iLife is still wooing over new users, but there is a large segment of users that want and need more. 25 minutes of iLife updates are fine to sit through, just follow it up at some point with 25 minutes of something more hardcore. Apple’s pro apps don’t get the same attention as iLife gets, which makes a lot of professional-level users feeling a little forgotten by the company.
An alternative would be for Apple to add some complexity to the iLife applications, instead of just more pre-built slideshows to iPhoto and re-touching music lessons in GarageBand.[3. Which have to be the craziest, least-used Apple software feature ever.]
iMovie ’11’s new audio tools are a good example of this. While easy to use, these new tools add a level of complexity and flexibility that has been missing from iMovie for a long time. Adding more complex photo editing to iPhoto and better podcast tools to GarageBand would make for a more powerful, well–rounded iLife.
Which would benefit both classes of Mac users.
Which would be good for Apple, too.
Update: I totally get that Apple’s growth over the last decade is due in major part to the fact that the company caters to consumers. That’s not a bad thing at all — Apple wouldn’t be the powerhouse it is toady without consumer programs and consumer hardware. My beefs are (1) that those of us who want more powerful apps wait far longer for updates than consumer-level users, and (2) that iLife could be made more powerful, which would help alleviate problem #1. Apple has a large segment of power users, and the company can’t forget about them.